


Waterlilies and Clove-Pinks

by lferion



Category: ALMA-TADEMA Lawrence - Works, Original Work
Genre: Artists, F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Painting, Yuletide 2012, antiquity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:35:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love blooms whither and when it will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waterlilies and Clove-Pinks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dr_zook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr_zook/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to J, A and M for encouragement above and beyond the call. Especial thanks to joyce and the hippos on #yuletide for last-minute sanity checking.
> 
> Dr Zook asked about both the ancient ladies, and the models. "Do they know each other, do their many timelines somehow intermingle somewhere?" This is the result. I hope it pleases!

* * *

> Aemilia Valerius Maior, fond of fishing for the sleek and silver trout in her family's broad lake, first met Berenike Rhadamanthou, new come to Herculaneum from distant Crete, in the apodyterium of the best of the public baths. They liked each other immediately. In truth, they desired each other immediately, but that was not a thing either recognized on instant; both of good family, both married young to husbands not unkind, but not attentive beyond duty for the sake of sons (Gaius Valerius Gracchus) or to seal alliance and be seen as a solid and upstanding citizen (Rhadamanthus Talthybiakis, much more interested in his fellows at the gymnasium than in female company). Neither had sisters or near cousins close in age. In the calidarium they deepened their acquaintance, and by the end of the long and pleasant afternoon, they were fast friends.

* * *

Bernice Epps-Evans met Emily Rydestone in the airy studio of Townsend House, residence and workplace of the noted painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Bernice was a distant cousin of the artist's wife, Emily a friend of a friend of the family. The artist had need of dark-haired models for a piece planned for the Academy, and Laura had asked among her acquaintance. 

Emily, reserved, found vivacious Bernice fascinating. The sheer and layered draperies they were to model did not faze Bernice, but rather delighted her. Emily took courage from her confidence, and soon was wearing them with grace if not quite ease, for the very scantness of them made her all the more aware of where they did touch, moving over skin more used to starch and boning than smooth softness. There was a delightful sense of forbidden freedom about the entire situation: the studio furnished as a classical setting, with antique attitudes, a simpler age, tiresome modern convention set aside like their corsetry and knickers. Anything might happen out of time.

Like theatricals, but without the public speaking. Emily made Bernice laugh with that observation, earning a glance from the artist. He told them to stay like that, with heads together whispering, just for a sketch. It was a a heady moment, breathing in the carnation scent of Bernice's toilet-water, feeling her warm breath on her cheek while the painter's charcoal scratched briskly over his paper. Their hands found each other under the carefully arranged folds of their stolas, and it was then that Emily knew, not just that she wanted so much more than social, superficial friendship with Bernice, but true affection, the kind that other girls at school had found with each other, lasting all their lives for some, but also that her feelings were returned. When the artist waved them back to their original positions, their hands parted, but not their glances, or, indeed, their hearts.

* * *

> Aemilia and Berenike met often at the baths, always each other's preferred partner to smooth on the cleansing oil with assiduous and appreciative hands, wield the strigil to remove it with the dust and perspiration of the day. Aemilia's skin always tingled more under Berenike's ministrations, eager for the embrace of heated water, soon longing for the embrace of arms, the touch of skin to skin in all their secret places.
> 
> At first they spoke of small things in their lives, hands more intimate than speech. Both were fond of flowers, had favorites among the gleaming denizens of well-kept pools, preferences and opinions on the friezes and sculptures that decorated the bath complex. Aemilia had children — a daughter she delighted in, and a son now grown out of nursery governance and in the hands of his father's appointed tutors. Berenike read a great deal and wrote rather less of philosophy and poetry, plays and epigrams. She was struck by the differences and similarities between the Roman and the Greek in style and philosophy, rhetoric and the conventions and subjects considered suitable for plays.

* * *

Bernice and Emily met for lunch on days when they were not needed for sittings. Both had independent lives to which each introduced the other. Emily had read the Sciences at Somerville, somewhat to the despair of her mother, though her father had encouraged her curious and scientific bent. She had always wanted to know how waterlilies grew, half in water, half in air, and how fish knew to surface when people threw breadcrumbs for them. The working of the world intrigued her still. When Emily spoke of research and her findings, Bernice listened and did not laugh.

Bernice had been engaged to be married, briefly, but did not miss the man, though they were still friends. She painted herself, flowers for the most part, single blooms in vases and watercolour gardens full of light and subtle color. Emily asked intelligent questions about how the paint was made, and how Bernice chose the colors she did, careful fingers hovering over the canvas and paper, following the lines that drew the eye first here then there within the image. 

Public lectures, concerts, poetry readings and picture exhibitions followed naturally on from lunches. They took long walks through Regent's park, talking of books and Emily's newest journal, of Bernice's small nephews and her current painting. They spoke of all manner of things, growing ever closer. Their friends were happy for them, rarely inviting one without the other, affectionately dubbing them 'The Greco-Roman Twins', a name that stuck long after the painting for which they modeled was finished.

* * *

> One day Aemilia spoke of her fears that her young Valeria would be unhappy in her marriage, an alliance already being discussed, though nothing yet was firm, nor would it take place for many years. Berenike heard the threnody beneath the words that told of deeper currents, darker scents, cold linen sheets and marital duties dutifully performed, desire unmet. 
> 
> Shyly, her heart beating quick and loud in her ears, Berenike shared the poem she had written for her friend — _Aemilia Amanda, with a naiad's grace and a maenad's joyous power…._ — and found her hand taken, palm pressed to palm in a new and deeper closeness.

* * *

Bernice commissioned pleated silks, fine linens such as they had worn as stately, leisured, antique ladies at that memorable sitting. She had not forgotten the sensuous touch of the draperies on her unstayed form, nor the way Emily had looked in them. The way her breath had moved the silk across her lovely breasts. How the cloth caressed her long legs and rounded thighs. Bernice longed for more than memory of sight, and knew Emily did too. Waiting for the delivery, she picked up her pencils, drawing the lines so clear in her mind. She did not often draw people, but Emily she drew: Emily swimming, naked in the clear water of a Roman bath, Emily talking to her fish as she watched them dart and play among the waterlily stems, gauzy silks draping her limbs, Emily imagined drowsy and replete, skin flushed, lips curved, relaxed among rucked linens, hair fanned upon the pillows. 

She had seen Emily off earlier in the week, taking the train to Edinburgh in triumph, with an article accepted by a noted journal, an invitation to meet with others working in her field at a conference at the University there. This time, when Emily returned, Bernice would let her see those sketches, that showed the love she could draw more easily than say.

* * *

> They strolled in Berenike's garden, a verdant jewel set inside the walls of her husband's city house. They spoke of proper things: what merchant had the nicest fabrics, the best cosmetics, how Aemilia's children did, what Berenike would have the gardner plant in spring. Always conscious of the servant's ear, how their friendship looked. Here they could still speak of poetry and plays, conveying much in glances, not in words; in a flower's gift, a single stem of clove-pinks, red as sunrise edged in white, or blushing pink as Berenike's cheeks.
> 
> Aemilia's city house featured a marble terrace that overlooked the sea, complete with a fountain-pool made lively with clever fish. There they fed the fish, played with young Valeria, read or wrote, and discussed more of their inner thoughts, though all still at a suitable distance. Aemilia wondered if it would be simpler to be other than a patrician, observed by many eyes, all too often disapproving. 
> 
> The baths allowed a playful touch amidst the pretty throng, a feast for eyes, planting seeds, stirring up desires that swam deep within, coiling hot and low, to carry home unreleased. The Baths were public. The garden and the terrace only semi-private. Through all the autumn, winter and spring, they made do with chaste company and unchaste thoughts, inseparable within the bounds of propriety.

* * *

Emily emerged from the dressing-room, cheeks as pink as the [carnations/dianthus] scenting the air with clove and spice. The fluted cloth dipped low between her breasts, clung softly to the curves of hip and thigh, emphasizing every shape that fashion kept constrained. Bernice grinned, twirling barefoot in her own gauzy draperies. After a moment, Emily joined her, laughing. Giddy, almost dizzy with love-desire, they stopped before they overset the tea-table. 

Late afternoon light glowed gold on the cloth, picked out the colors of the flowers in their vase beside the tall window. Emily's beauty took Bernice's breath away. It was hard to find the air to speak. "Emily," she said, both terrified and excited, "will you, will you make love with me?"

Emily's eyes were stars, "Yes," she said, breathless herself, "of course I will."

Bernice put out her hand and slipped the pleated silk from Emily's shoulder, aware of the brush of linen against her own skin, the delicious, dangerously erotic sensation of being utterly naked under the thin cloth. Emily shivered, and Bernice shivered with her, as Emily's slender fingers reached out in turn to oh-so-lightly trace the embroidered edge of Bernice's draperies, not quite dipping beneath, sending sparks flaring along her nerves, stoking the coals that burned hot in her secret places. She wanted Emily's hands to take and not just touch, to squeeze and press and pull, to ease the yearning want that threatened to overwhelm her. 

Breath coming fast, Bernice took Emily's hand in her own, moved it to cup her full breast, folded Emily's fingers to press against her stiff nipple, aching for touch. "Yes," she whispered, "yes, like that." 

Emily, daring, leaned down to kiss Bernice's other breast beneath the cloth, unfastening the pin that held the draperies fastened beneath. Bernice shuddered, letting the linen fall, the skim of sliding cloth setting fire to her skin. Soon, Emily was equally revealed, and they were tumbling together on pillowed divan, touching, kissing, exploring tender places that had never known another's eye or tongue or hand. 

Tangled together, Bernice's fingers threaded through the curls at Emily's mound, slipped between her nether lips slick with need to find the swollen pearl. Emily gasped into Bernice's mouth, kissing her fiercely, hips moving eagerly into the touch. She spread her thighs wider, and her own hands roamed Bernice's back, sweeping up and down to find a happy grip on rounded cheeks. They rocked together, heat and pleasure growing until first one and then the other came in a burst of shuddering delight.

* * *

> When Summer came, and all who could left the heat and closeness of the city for the wider spaces and cooler climes of villas and country estates, Aemilia invited Berenike (Bernice invited Emily) to join her at the villa with the fishpond that she loved so well. Berenike was glad to accept: the summer spent with her dearest friend, amid undemanding company — for both their husbands were away, likely for the entire season — was all her heart could wish.
> 
> No quickly hidden glances now, no veiled allusions, no need to seek out inner rooms with doors that might be closed to share a too-revealing word, a too-intimate touch. They had all the summer to them selves; they could play at maenads did they wish, and Aphrodite and Diana would look on them with kindness for it. 
> 
> On the wide and elegant fishpond, made green with ferns, shaded by stately oak, long-haired willow, the waterlilies opened their cream-pink petals to the warming sun. By the grassy banks and neat-raked paths, the bushes of clove-pinks and roses filled the air with their mingled scents of spice and sweetness. From the summerhouse beside the pool came the happy sounds of two women, discovering anew the ancient, ageless delights of love.

* * *

"We should have a garden," Emily said sleepily, head resting in the hollow of Bernice's shoulder, linens furled and ruffled around them. "You can plant carnations. Clove-pinks." One hand curled around the soft fullness of Bernice's breast, thumb gently circling the flushed nipple. 

Bernice sighed happily, brushing a kiss against Emily's curls. "A pond, a little fountain, for your fish, and lots of waterlilies." They could have a cottage and a flat, both city and country. Waterlilies and Clove-pinks. And, of course, each other.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Links to the paintings --  
> [A Greek Woman](http://uploads0.wikipaintings.org/images/alma-tadema-lawrence/a-greek-woman-1869.jpg)  
> [Roman Fisher Girl](http://img.posterlounge.de/images/wbig/sir-lawrence-alma-tadema-roman-fisher-girl-115990.jpg)  
> [A Favourite Custom](http://uploads5.wikipaintings.org/images/alma-tadema-lawrence/a-favourite-custom-1909.jpg)


End file.
